


Sulphur

by HopeCoppice



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Other, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), The Fall - Freeform, Trauma, nonsense really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 16:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20709236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeCoppice/pseuds/HopeCoppice
Summary: Aziraphale has avoided the very substance once called brimstone for 6000 years. No doubt he's come into contact with it, but never closely, and never in its pure form.Until he visits a science lab and has to confront a harsh understanding.





	Sulphur

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what this is, I just had the idea jotted down and wanted to write it. Hopefully you'll enjoy it.
> 
> (Oh - and the book briefly mentioned is just chosen for its most famous quote, because I couldn't resist)
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't do science. I did, briefly, Google some things, but I apologise for any inaccuracies.

"Now, I know you're all _ very _impressed with our lecture halls and offices, but it's time for the fun bit, now."

Aziraphale is supposed to be inspiring a PhD student, and this little open day seems the perfect opportunity. His target, for lack of a better word, is leading a small group of visitors around the Chemistry department, and all Aziraphale has to do is choose his moment and whisper some Divine Encouragement into her ear.

“This is where we play with _ fire_.”

This is not the moment Aziraphale should choose, it seems; this is the moment where they all crowd around something called a box furnace in a laboratory and peer through the little observation window.

“That’s sulphur, in there. It’s what people mean when they talk about ‘fire and brimstone’. And we’re gonna heat it up, just to show you what this equipment can do. See, sulphur doesn’t melt until it hits about 115 degrees Celsius. I’m just going to flash this up to 130, for now…”

_ Fire and brimstone_. _ Lakes of boiling sulphur_. Aziraphale has heard about this substance before, but in all his time on earth he’s managed to avoid ever really _ seeing _it, let alone in liquid form. But there it is, the innocuous-looking yellow mineral already beginning to melt and fit the shape of its container. Perhaps it has been longer than Aziraphale imagined, staring at it; certainly, some of the others in the group are beginning to fidget.

“But 130 degrees isn’t that impressive. You could probably do that with a Bunsen burner, if you hated yourself for some reason. Get a load of this, though; sulphur doesn’t _ boil _until about 444 degrees Celsius. So if you see bubbles, you know it’s getting hot. Let’s crank it up.”

The liquid begins to boil before Aziraphale’s horrified eyes, and he’s lost in the numbers. His kettle boils at 100 degrees, and if he was stupid enough to touch the water, he knows it would be extremely unpleasant. The sulphur starts bubbling at four and a half times that temperature, and all he can think, watching a great yellow bubble swell and pop on the surface, is how much _ that _must hurt. It doesn’t help, he suspects, that the colour reminds him of Crowley’s eyes. The PhD student clears her throat awkwardly.

“Wow. OK, it doesn’t always get there _ that _fast, but OK. Anyway, you should see it when it catches fire, it’s the most amazing- oh. That’s… not supposed to happen.”

The sulphur _ is _ on fire, bright blue flames licking up the inside of the box furnace, and their guide hurries to switch it off, but Aziraphale can’t take his eyes off of the flames. Heaven can forget their assignment; they forget, easily enough, that he doesn’t work for them any more. He was only here out of some lingering sense of fairness towards the humans, and now, staring into the bright blue fire of boiling, burning sulphur, Aziraphale has never felt further from the concept of _ fair_.

He wrenches his eyes from the furnace and storms from the room, snapping his fingers to vanish without a trace from the corridor. Inside the lab, the flames die away as if they were never there.

* * *

Crowley is asleep, a third edition of _ Lady Windemere's Fan _draped over his face in place of his usual sunglasses, when Aziraphale pops into existence beside him.

“Crowley-”

The demon wakes with a start and hurries to move the book. “‘M not reading it- I mean, not sleeping- ‘s only a third-” Aziraphale doesn’t care about the book; he doesn’t care about anything except cramming himself into the available space on his stupid, tiny couch and wrapping his arms around his demon.

“Crowley, I’m so sorry for what they did-”

“...Angel?” Crowley slips his arms around Aziraphale’s waist in return, guides him until they’re sitting together rather than laying uncomfortably on top of one another. “Angel, what’s wrong? What who- are you hurt?”

“Am _ I-? _ Crowley, I’ve seen it. Sulphur, boiling - burning - it’s so _ hot_, and you-”

“Angel.” It’s all he says for a moment, and Aziraphale can almost hear him trying to slot pieces of the puzzle together. He can’t help him; he’s trying to hide scalding, shameful tears in Crowley’s own collar. “Angel… is this about the Fall?”

“Of course-”

“But- it was a long time ago, angel. Really, it’s not- what’s brought this on now?”

“Sulphur, they were boiling sulphur, and- and I’ve never-”

“Oh, angel.” Crowley’s voice still carries a hint of confusion, but he doesn’t let it stop him; he presses gentle kisses into Aziraphale’s hair and holds him until the crying dies down. “I’m all right,” the angel hears, between sobs, “I’m here.”

Later, Aziraphale will have to tell him what’s happened. Later, perhaps, Crowley will tease him about his eternal avoidance of a smelly rock, or Aziraphale will burst into tears at the sight of the steam rising from the cocoa in his favourite mug as Crowley drops a marshmallow into it, or perhaps both of those things will happen and they’ll end up in bed, sadly lacking in cocoa but very much satisfied with one another. Later, there will be explanations, and angelic apologies, and frantic demonic denials of those apologies because _ apologising for God is a sure way to Fall, angel._ Later, Crowley will guide Aziraphale’s hands over his flesh and whisper _ look, I’m here, I’m not burned, _ and later still Aziraphale will wake in the night and tangle shaking hands into red hair, desperate for an anchor to the love of his eternity.

For now, Crowley holds him, and Aziraphale cries, and somewhere far away a PhD student has a brilliant, completely human, idea.


End file.
